


Equal Sides of the Same Coin

by haunted_typewriter



Category: Arthurian Mythology, Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Can you tell I'm salty, Canon Rewrite, F/F, F/M, Fake Character Death, Family Drama, Female Character of Color, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Killian Jones to be portrayed by Gao Godfrey, Light One!Arthur, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, OT3, morgan and morgause are two different people but still arthurs sisters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-08-10 02:57:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20128228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haunted_typewriter/pseuds/haunted_typewriter
Summary: Emma has taken on more than she can chew when she accepts the powers of the Dark One. Now thrown through worlds-Again- she finds herself in Camelot and the only person capable of helping her long thought dead. Now she must work together with the young King Arthur to uncover Merlin's trail and discover the lost history of the Dark Ones, unaware they share more in common then they first realize.A canon rewrite of season five where Excalibur isn't an over extended dick joke.





	Equal Sides of the Same Coin

**Author's Note:**

> in case it needed mentioning, this arthur is not the racist sex offender as seen in the show. i literally wrote this because i couldn't stand the depiction of arthur in the show and i had to write this version, otherwise my brain would explode from how much i hated the camelot arc.

Somewhere across many worlds, in a cold medieval town, there is a draft taking place. Young men from across the territory have come to serve their kingdom. They’re lined up in a gray brown field, chatting amongst themselves and prepping their weapons. It’s required for any willing soldier to prove their worth to the Weapons Master in a single round of hand to hand combat. The Master has seen to ten of the young soldiers already, only one of them was deemed appropriate.

This made Sir Ector very stressed and when he was stressed, he paced. And when Sir Ector paced, it made his son Kai nervous, and when Kay was nervous, he took it out on Arthur.

"Aren’t you done yet?” Kai snapped. “I ain’t going to the War master with filthy armor.’” Arthur groaned over Kai’s breastplate, polishing the metal for what seemed like the tenth time. He was starting to regret asking to be Kai’s squire. Arthur always felt that Kai and Sir Ector actively looked for reasons to be mad at him. Just, this morning, Sir Ector had yelled at him over packing an extra sword for the trials. For Arthur it had always been this way. Kai was around ten years old when his father brought Arthur home. At first, he was excited at the prospect of having a little brother, but it faded with time. Even as an infant, Arthur was a scapegoat for misplaced anger and magnet for scandalous rumors. One of Arthur’s first memories was being called “Ector’s bastard” at a mere six months old. Now a teenager, Arthur began to feel the weight of those words.

“He’s not a War Master, he’s the Weapons Master!” Sir Ector snapped. Across the yard a trumpet sounded as another young man left the arena in shame. Feeling the pressure build, Ector swung on his heel and addressed the boys. “Put on your plate and take out your sword, Kai!”

Kai rolled his eyes and did as his father asked, grumbling along the way.

Sir Ector drilled Kai through his sword tactics, one after another, until Kai had made a fatal slip. Maybe it was the cold winter weather that day or the swords age, or that there was a particularly hard and nasty rock lying just within Kay’s arm range. Either way, there was definitely a force guiding the situation in its favor. As Kai stepped forward to thrust, his foot slipped in the muddied slush. Kai yelled as he fell nearly into a full split, dropping his sword. Hitting the ground, the weapon broke into three pieces.

The tournament, the crowd, even Kai’s prized thorough bred horse, were all silenced for the trio. Arthur was especially afflicted by this. He knew it wasn’t any fault of his, but still he wanted to run. Kai seemed to be in the same state, stuck sitting in the mud fixated on the broken sword.

If Sir Ector could be compared to a fruit of some kind, he would most likely resemble a tomato dipped in red paint and set ablaze.

“You…bloody idiot…” Sir Ector said through deep intakes, gripping his red sweaty face. “Where…Where’s the other sword?”

“You said not to bring it…” Arthur muttered it and immediately regretted it.

“Why didn’t you bring it anyway, you stupid-! No. No. There’s no time.” Sir Ector groaned. He looked torn between his frantic pacing and being frozen to the spot. “Ronan….! Ronan the Black Smith owes me a favor- maybe…Arthur! Go into town and find Ronan. Tell him to give you a sword any sword and I’ll pay him the rest later.” Sir Ector shoved a bag of coin into Arthur’s chest and pushed him towards the town. “Now! Before I rip the spine from your little body!”

Arthur was already out of the festival boundaries.

* * *

It was strange how Arthur never truly noticed the sword before today.

The Black Smith’s workshop was closed and so was every merchant stall in town. Arthur had been running back and forth for about an hour. That was when he had walked by the royal cemetery. Of course, he heard the stories.

‘_That’s King Uther’s sword_.’ ‘_It was used to slay a thousand and one men, brought upon Camelot by the Mountain King_’. ‘_Its magic, Merlin himself appeared and left it there_’. But he never really believed any of them. Like how there was supposedly a Warlord somewhere named Bo Peep or that dwarves came out of eggs. It was just a load of nonsensical horse shit that definitely never happened. _But we’re off topic_.

The sword, commonly referred to as Caliburn, was rooted upon a marble slab. The final resting place of its owner. Despite his morals, Arthur knew Sir Ector would disown him if he returned with nothing. And in the end, he feared Sir Ector’s anger more than any ghost. Arthur gingerly climbed over the fence, enclosing the King’s last resting place. Lilies, Gladioli, Roses and Chrysanthemums encircled the grave. Their dried petals crunched under Arthur’s shoes. As a somber feeling ran through him, Arthur felt like he should say something, but he didn’t know anything about the King aside from the rumors. Sir Ector knew the man but hardly spoke about him. It had been ten years and the town still mourned his death leaving flowers on his grave on the anniversary. Yet no one had moved the sword in decades. Surely no one would mind. He would return it the moment the tournament was over, at least that’s what he told himself.

Arthur stared down at the gravestone underneath him, feeling almost as if he was the one in the coffin.

“I’m really sorry your Highness, but I’ll bring it right back for you.” Arthur gripped the handle of the sword.

There is no chorus of angels or fanfare.

Only light. Blinding. _**Burning.**_

Yet something fundamentally shifted in Arthur as a wave of warmth surrounded him.

For a moment he felt uplifted. Floating. **_Electrifying._**

Then it was gone. Arthur held the sword out in front of him. He felt like a weight had been dropped on him and dispersed over his body. Unlike Kai or Sir Ector’s swords, the King’s sword felt strangely balanced in Arthur’s inexperienced hands. It was a beautiful long sword with an onyx handle, the blade was almost pearlescent reflecting light at every angle.

_Kay and Ector! _

They were waiting for him! Arthur jumped to his feet, unaware that he was lying on the ground, and hopped the fence again. As he was leaving the flowers that were once dead and drooping came to life, their bright mourning colors now revived.

* * *

If a person had to measure time only using the average lifespan of a “Dark One” entity, then Six to Seven Dark Ones ago, The Dark One of that time constructed thirteen golden magical discs.

This particular Dark One had an affinity for Golems. She spent most of her life creating magical algorithms to construct the perfect Golem. Entirely Identical to Human Beings down to the complex DNA sequences. To achieve this, she devised a golden pottery wheel. _(I __w__ill personally never understand why Dark Ones have such a fascination with Gold. I can only imagine that it’s because every Dark One has the same short attention span and are easily distracted by shiny objects)._ It was these devices she planted around the countryside. Underneath each one, she left a pocket filled with a black gelatinous liquid.

Her plan was, should her body ever be destroyed and without a successor to take her magic-she could use her powers to release her soul and travel to one of these enchanted pottery wheels. She used this tactic several times, sometimes for rather vain reasons like finding a mole on her shoulder. Once she was finally taken by the Dark One blade, her ‘pottery wheels’ belonged the Dark Ones that followed her. Anytime a Dark One lost their body their soul would return to the pottery wheels and the fluid would form into a new body.

And after centuries of neglect, the one pottery wheel left in Camelot, came to life.

The black fluid emerged from the wheel like eels from their cave. They writhed and squirmed, trying to define its new form. Two tendrils slammed down on the ground in front of it, scrambling for purchase. They began to form from fingers up to elbows and from there to shoulders. The dripping head of this new Dark pulled itself out of the pool, mouth wide open silently screaming until a sound finally emerged with her blunt facial features. The dark water began to drip away revealing pale skin and long blonde hair. These new hands began to pull her still forming body away from the pottery wheel. She began kicking the black tendrils away from her, freeing her legs in the process.

Within a matter of minutes, Emma Swan had been reborn.

The black thick liquid began to subside, returning to the golden disc from whence it came.

Still in shock, Emma screamed. Gasping for air, she patted herself down, checking to see if her extremities were still there. Thankfully they were in the same place as when she was forcibly removed from Storybrooke. The only difference was her clothing. Instead of her classic jacket, she found herself wearing a dark blue vest over a long sleeved black flowing shirt. A pair of leather riding boots formed over her feet. As Emma stood, shaking from the sudden transformation, she recognized the Dark One’s dagger hanging from her belt. She couldn’t remember where she saw it last, but it must have formed alongside her.

Now slowly coming to her senses, Emma began to take in her surroundings. The night sky was spread out above her. She stood in the center of ruins long forgotten and taken back by nature. Marble columns fallen to time and broken statues painted by flowering moss. Beyond the ruins, a dense forest untouched by man for ages. Emma didn’t see any resemblance to the Enchanted Forest. This place was utterly unfamiliar to her.

“Well It’s About Time Dearie!”

Oh no…

Rumpelstiltskin appeared before Emma, as if he had been standing in the ruins all through her transformation. He was back to his enchanted self, draconian scales and needle like teeth, cat-like eyes and fingers like daggers. Emma couldn’t believe her eyes. Rumpelstiltskin should have been in Storybrooke, de-magicked and a hundred percent human. Unless…

“You’re not Rumpelstiltskin, are you?” she asked. “You’re some sort of side effect from the Dark One magic.”

Rumpelstiltskin gasped dramatically, grasping his chest as if he had been stabbed. “Oh, you wound me! My terrible plot…. destroyed by your cunning graces.” After a moment of silence, he broke into a cacophony of shrill laughter. “Oh no no-Lets just call this is a…. rite of passage? Every Dark One needs a teacher and who better to teach you than…well all of us?” with those last words, his voice rumbled and echoed like an eerie choir. His form blurred and for a fraction of a second he appeared to be quickly changing from one face to another. The illusion ended as quickly as it came and Rumpelstiltskin was suddenly beside Emma, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Just think of me as your little shoulder angel, pushing you in the wrong direction! Oh, and you’ll be needing these.” In a snap a dark cloak and black bandanna appeared in Emma’s grasp.

Rumpelstiltskin disappeared in the same instant, appearing on the other edge of the ruins. “Now let’s get a move on, we have civilians to terrorize!”

Without another word Rumpelstiltskin took off into the woods, leaving a comical cloud of gold dust behind him.

Emma considered following him. Rumpelstiltskin did seem to have an idea of where they were, even if he didn’t want to share with Emma. She only needed him to get her to the nearest town. From there she can plan to get back to Storybrooke and once back the Apprentice can destroy the Dark One magic. But if Rumpelstiltskin wasn’t actually here, then there was no point. He-IT was an illusion and if Emma followed along, she could wind up running in circles. Then again, if she was going crazy, she wouldn’t be able to rationalize as well as she’s doing now. But if he was just a culmination of every Dark One wouldn’t he- Emma screamed into the folded confines of her cloak.

She wouldn’t get anywhere if she just stood around questioning everything.

Fueled by the relief of a muffled scream, Emma fastened the cloak over her shoulders and headed into the woods.

Just a days ride from the ruins, lies Camelot. In a high palace tower overlooking the sleeping kingdom, Arthur’s nightmare was just beginning.

He dreamt of a bottomless black lake. And he was sinking like a stone. Arthur thrashed and kicked but to no avail. He was losing sight of the surface. Nearly a million voices filled the water, incoherently mocking Arthur’s struggle. He opened his mouth to beg for help but choked on the thick black liquid.

_Well we can’t have that can we_. A brilliant familiar light appeared, and Arthur could breathe again. Instead of sinking, Arthur was now floating. He eagerly looked around him for the source of the voice but found nothing. _We’ll have to be quick my child. A darkness has arrived in Camelot and that is far from the worst of it._


End file.
